Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

[Malacite]

oooooo this thing is fun


It has me curious though, is this how the new tech trees will work from now on? No more pumping points into skills every level? Or maybe this is just a sample-thing I really don't know (or maybe, we can only have so many skills total, but we can still sink multiple points in them)


Without further delay, here is my latest creation. It's basically an all-out hatred build for the Demon Hunter to maximize offense with just a tinge of support to maintain constant Discipline buffs.


Demon Hunter - Game - Diablo III


Multi-shot was the only hard call. It was really difficult deciding between extra discipline to keep fueling my support abilities, or extra damage. I figure the support is better.


I'm also trying to perfect a support/healer build for the Monk. I had a very, very good healer build for Paladin in D2:LoD that started off weak but became a house around the 50's. The only downside was that it was very weak solo and couldn't really do much damage unless fighting Undead, but the support was ridiculous (everyone recovering Life & Mana at ridiculous rates & spamming Holy Bolt to cure or smash undead)


The Barbarian is just... well, fuck. I thought they were strong in D2, they're even more batshit in D3. Really the only class I don't like is the Witch Doctor.

Like, at all. Hopefully necro & pally will come back in the eventual expansion.

[DakAttack]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

It's pointless to use that thing for anything but a hype tool until the mechanics behind combat become more clear.

As far as I can tell you're not putting points into anything, and there are no trees. The skills are either unlocked as you obtain their respective levels, or they become available for purchase, at which point you can then modify it by slotting it with a gem.

[Taskmage]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

I've been having a lot of fun with that thing, planning final skill setups and so forth. I think it's ultimately pointless since you can respec your character at any time, as I understand it, but it's a neat vehicle for checking out all the different skill variations and passives and looking at what works together. I've got a critical hit barb and a death blossom illusionist sorc all planned out. The other classes I'm just going to have to play with. They have a lot of neat-looking skills but no builds spring out to me as obvious.

[Malacite]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

Eh? I don't remember hearing anything about being able to respec.

I do have however what I feel to be a fairly abusive Barbarian Build... I think part of why Blizzard put this out is so people can determine theoretically broken builds i.e. nerf this shit in advance. for example;


Barbarian - Game - Diablo III



That's a build I just finished, that's essentially a nonstop fury machine that spams the hell out of the most powerful, high cost abilities. Every socket either extends the duration of the ability, reduces the fury cost and/or causes the ability to generate additional fury.

I also have the passive skills to prevent fury loss when outside of battle (and actually regenerate it), generate 10% additional fury (and +20 max) and -30s to 3 big 75 fury abilities, all of which are set. Oh, and Earthquake is modded via sockets to have a default cooldown of 50s, which if it stacks with my passive ability, will further drop it twenty seconds.


Provided I can maintain enough fury (which should be easy) at level 30 this build can basically maintain a permanent Wrath of the Berserker buff and spam the shit out of Earthquake all the while the Ancients are out to support you every 90s.

Broken, as, shit (seemingly anyway)

[Taskmage]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

Eh? I don't remember hearing anything about being able to respec.

If you watch the beta footage on youtube, at any time you can switch your active skill slots to any skill you've unlocked so far. Afaik there are no runestones in the beta, though, so who knows how it works with that. At best the runestone stays socketed to the skill slot when you switch the skill in it, which would give a lot of flexibility. At worst the runestone would be lost when you unset the skill it's attached to, which means changing your build up would be a matter of finding new runestones to support the skills you want to switch to.

idk that the build you linked is that great. I mean yes, it can spam skills that are normally expensive, but each of those attacks is going to be less powerful than one used by someone who used non-golden stones and is simply using strong skills to build and spend fury.

This is the build I was looking at using: Barbarian - Game - Diablo III
Nothing bah-ro-ken but built to make the most out of crits and warcries. Overpower is an AoE attack that you can only use after scoring a critical hit. Passives and warcries give a 24% base chance to crit when using maces, which is upped to 46% after using Overpower thanks to the red runestone. Coupled with the increased attack speed from Frenzy, I should be able to spam that skill practically at will, and the fast fury generation from that skill plus the gold runestone in war cry mean I should be able to maintain the buff from Wrath of the Berserker during combat. Obsidian runestone in Battle Rage for 5-10% more drops, as well.

Actually, the alabaster rune effect on Battle Rage looks pretty ridiculous with a 24/46% crit rate. Whether I ultimately go with a black or white rune depends on how effective the build is for MFing. Or, you know, the skills play out in practice nothing like what we expect on paper and none of this matters.

---------- Post added at 11:21 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------

I take it back. The super low recast on earthquake plus three almost-perpetual barbarian pets on your build does look pretty sweet. I wouldn't go so far as to say abusive, but pretty cool.

[Taskmage]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

Today Blizzard announced a rough ETA for Diablo III of "early 2012." Time for me to stop paying attention for a while.

[DakAttack]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

There's still a decent chance we'll get invited to the beta, if we're signed up for it.

[Taskmage]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

Cool if it happens. Til then I'm only going to burn out my enthusiasm if I continue poring over all the news and beta footage until release.

[Malacite]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

Yeah I"m not even bothering with the footage.

As for the customizing skills... dude, it's the beta. It's probably like that on purpose for the testing. I'd imagine that in retail, skills will be locked in once chosen much like the previous entries (except the runestones which we know for sure are customizable)

[Taskmage]

Re: Diablo 3 Skill Calculator

As for the customizing skills... dude, it's the beta. It's probably like that on purpose for the testing. I'd imagine that in retail, skills will be locked in once chosen much like the previous entries (except the runestones which we know for sure are customizable)

According to a Blizzard rep, being able to change your skills on the fly is an intended part of the design, but that may not be 100% nailed down. In response to this post on the official forum:

The current system of being allowed to change your active (and passive?) skills at absolutely any time without any restrictions or limitations is generally deemed by the community as not the greatest of ideas. If we are free to respec whatever, whenever, then in theory we are granted access to all skills and the 6 cap just becomes an illusion. It also severely encourages the use of 3rd party macros for fast-swapping on the run.

Daxxarri said this:

We're currently testing a few different solutions, but I don't have anything specific to report on that front just yet. We're okay with players changing their builds while they're out adventuring, but we're not comfortable with players running around with their skill pane open swapping skills during combat. We'd also rather not have a system which forces players to return to town. We’ve tried it, and it feels really bad. Of course, worse comes to worse and if our attempts to curb use in combat fail, it could very well be what we have to resort to.

Source:2 major design questions from beta - Forums - Diablo III